I'll admit I was pretty overawed. Before WoW, the closest I'd come to playing a free roaming game was the GTA series (which awed me too at the time.) I also hadn't really played any games on PC either with any degree of seriousness, so that was new as well.

I've always been a zombie fanatic, so when I saw I could play one I chose it without even looking at the other races. My friend who got me started played a mage, and I wanted to be a more evil version of what he was (akin to Jedi/Sith) so I chose warlock. That undead warlock is still one of my mains to this day, after six and a half years.

I didn't understand questing XP, gear stats, class roles, anything. I ran around with a girl who started with me, and was also clueless, doing everything completely stupidly and wrong since the game didn't hold your hand back then, and it was more fun than I've really had since I "mastered" the game. We made a leveling guild, with her the diplomatic leader and me the "co-leader/bouncer" that handled booting unruly people from the guild, enforcing everything and organizing world PvP. It ended up being the biggest non-end game guild on the server, with several hundred people. That's back when people were friendly in general. There's no way that guild could happen now, with the format we used and the silly "good cop/bad cop" methods we had. Everyone loved it at the time, though.

Getting ganked by an Alliance girl over and over as I leveled (and others of course, but her most of all) inspired me to become the most feared Horde player on my server to match her, and after over forty days played time, I finally hit max level and began my conquest. She was a mage, and warlocks countered mages (and nearly everything else) pretty hard in BC, so once I got geared I completely slaughtered her and accomplished being the most feared player on my server. I had entire guilds who were KOS for me, and vice versa. There was no way to talk to enemy faction players back then, but me and that mage made an unspoken truce (mostly through flirty and begging emotes on her part until I stopped killing her) and stopped attacking each other, emoting while we killed everyone else in the area. Once Real ID came about years later, we actually became close and played together for a time.

In any case, I'd say my time spent on WoW during BC was the most fun I've ever had with any game by a mile, between the guild and the world PvP legacy, and I'd attribute it almost entirely to it being a new experience. Even the leveling was exciting. It kind of makes me sad to think about all of that now and know that the feeling can't ever be recaptured, even if WoW did go back to how it used to be. Nostalgia FTW!

Woke up as an undead rogue in a good ol' crypt in Deathknell. Oh Deathknell, its beautiful haunting stillness. Wandering zombies, mindless husks - I almost perceived them as critters. Traces of forlorn tragedies, cannibalism, mindless aggression of Scourge, Scarlet zealots - killing them was a pleasure. I loved that place. As for mechanics, understanding them was never difficult considering my experience with RPGs.

"A NAME IS A CLOAK OF LETTERS THROWN UPON A MAN. IT MEANS NOTHING." - Transcendent One, Planescape: Torment.

First time I ever played....hmmm....
Well, a friend of mine was playing it over at my house, and I was watching - I actually had a few friends over, early '05 - I was 14. Never played an MMO - so the vastness of the world he was showing me was incredible to me. I remember he was flying over Mulgore - and there was a totem pole with a bunch of tauren around it...and it's pretty obvious now he has no idea wtf he was talking about because he was like 'these are offline people!' hahaha. Now I know they were NPCs. Anyways! He mostly played Alliance, as did the other 2 people I knew that played at the time, all on the same server. And so he let me play - I got on his account, made a human warlock and literally played for like a day straight. I really didn't care who was at my house, I was gonna play that game until I dropped. LOL. I remember going into Westfall and freaking out about the golems. Hahaha. At the time they seemed huge. Or the Dust Devil in Westfall.....my biggest enemy that first week! I will still never forgive that Dust Devil. Lol. He seriously didn't get back his account for like a week, which now I feel bad about - then I went and got the game ^_^, made a mage - went Horde - been happy ever since ). MOSTLY. Sometimes I rage at Blizz. Lol. But he did recently delete the lock after all those years, made me sad : ( She got to like level 18 or something. I got on her a couple years ago when I was over at his place just to mess around. <3 Forgot her name now though. Probably something like Jayden, lol.

Although I used to think 'farming' meant you could grow crops when I first started playing. Hahaha. But then they actually did add farming, so hey. : P

Some great stories here It's fun to read other peoples first impression, alot are similar to mine. And some great insight from those that had already been playing MMO's for some time. Keep them coming!

I also remember when I fell off the waterfall in Teldrassil, and spent hours trying to get back to my body.. I must have floated around the base of Teldrassil for hours till i realised i'd need to rez at the graveyard, but didn't know how to get back to it, until some kind soul told me there was a portal at Rut'theran Village (doh).

I started as a Dwarven Paladin named Barundor in Vanilla. I absolutely loved it. The starting zone felt like an amazing adventure. Ironforge, still laggy as fel back then, so amazingly beautiful. The mighty forges where I began my profession. I developed a love for exploration early on, in my amazement. Definitely one of the greatest moments were spent on the back of a gryphon on flight paths. That felt so amazing. I made a great number of screenshots.

So much negativity on these boards lately, I figured it'd be nice to have a positive thread to spend time in, exploring the feelings you got when you first started playing, when you first created your first character, when you logged into the wonderful world of Azeroth.

How did you feel? What were the first things you did? Did you just go off and explore, or spend time looking through all the tabs for spells and such.

For myself, I made a Female Night Elf Druid. I was so excited after seeing the Night Elf in the cinematic, running through the forest, turning into a panther. I thought *I want to play one of those!!* and Proceeded to spend like an hour choosing the features she would have for what at the time I thought would be the rest of my time playing (until boom Barber! haha).

So I chose to give her long spring green hair, sultry but simple face with no tattoos and jumped into the game!

This was my first time ever playing any games on PC, (apart from solitaire or Minesweeper haha! Blame my hubby for forcing me to try out WoW) At first log on I was amazed by the scenery, it just looked so amazing,the music, it was magical, then I spotted some cats and pigs and I wanted to roam about and see what else was there! Then I realised I had no clue how to move, I was wondering how I moved without a joystick..or pad.. (/slaps self) But my hubby was there to guide me, and I got a hang of the controls fast, and that was me I was off, chasing pigs and cats killing happily until my hubby told me I hadn't picked up the *quest*.

Quest? What the hecks a quest? I soon found out, and there was no stopping me after that! I spent hours in Shadowglen, even after I ran out of quests, I figured that was it? and was dissapointed .

My hubby sighed at me and pointed me in a specific direction, I left Shadowglen, and walked into Teldrassil. The world just got so much bigger for me, I was even more excited, and proceeded to devour the quests like a mad woman. I had no clue that even Teldrassil was not the end of my adventures, when I went to Darnassus, I think my eyes may have popped out of their sockets.

I just couldn't imagine anything more beautiful, it was breathtaking, seeing the Ancients of War (I was scared to run past them I thought they might attack me!) then seeing the city sprawl out before my eyes. Seeing all these players wandering about the city not realising they were actually other people. Finding the Owl Vendor was also another *lightbulb* moment and was probably the cause of my extreme pet collecting addiction that consumes me even today

It just completely gobsmacked me in every way, that games like this exsisted. Well I was hooked and have been since, I bet you can understand how I felt when I found out I could take a boat to a whole new continent...

Please share your feelings of that first time you zones into the game. I'd love to hear

You have descrived most the feeling i had, the only exception was that i started picking up quests just at the beggining... Back then i thought the World was... Just Teldrassil, lol, when i hited level 10, and i got the warrior quest that allowed me to get defensive stance and force me to move to Darkshore, i was like WoW... Teldrassil is just a very tiny area of the entire game... The same happened at level 58 when i moved to outland lol, i was like, wow, there is even more, offcourse that i've already had seen Northrend in the map, so that feeling didn't repeated at lvl 68 .

A friend suggested the game to me, he let me pick a race, class and sever on my own which turned out to be a night elf rogue (I cant remember the server anymore) and when we first logged on I mainly just followed him around hitting things and listening what moves to use for an hour or two. I thought the surrounding area was pretty and had fun just exploring only mildly taking in the info he was giving me, I learned pretty much everything on my own after that point.

Once he showed me to a city he logged off and I found a group of role players that were pretty new themselves and took up with them for another two and we explored the land a trio of a human, night elf and dwarf - we ran into some pretty harry situations ??'s chasing after us and us not understanding why (we were told stay on the path and you'll be safe) didn't take into account aggro levels. Jumping on boats not knowing where we'd end up.. Other role player attacking us as a pirate. Good times. I haven't really RP'd since.. sort of miss just being able to go up to players and start a conversation.

That's IT! I had to do it... after years of lurking I just had to let it out on this one... here goes!

My first time on Azeroth wasn't my first time at all... I had played all warcrafts and was already a lore geek (my mates had already started calling me a walking warcraft enciclopedia by then... imagine now). I always had a thing for Stormwind (the kingdom of Azeroth by Warcraft I), being lawfull good and all. :P I swear I cried with the death of Anduin Lothar (and again later, with the novels... tried to repeat the start of that warcraft II mission a million times to save him... yeah...), and don't even get me started with Terenas... OR UTHER OMG!

So... when I started playing, back in beta (Human Paladin, ofcourse), I was like "OMG I'm starting out at Northshire Abbey!" and proceeded to click every available npc and read all they had to say (still do that today). Needless to say I found out about quests right away. Everything went perfectly normal (by noob standards) from there.

But I had a plan... THE plan... something I knew I would do, that I HAD to do, since I learned Humans were from Stormwind.

So I went on to Goldshire ("OMG Goldshire! Where's Moonbrook then???") and found more quests and something else that I was looking for... a clue! One of the npc's that gave me a quest at the local Inn pointed me to my destination... Stormwind City to the north. I was all giddy. So there goes the noble Paladin to the Grand City of Stormwind, just like he always had dreamed. I followed the road, got to the main gate, droolled, composed myself, checked my keybinds for the walk command, and breathed. My plan was about to unfold just as I had planned it.

I walked the into the Valley of Heroes with watery eyes (yes, I am THAT geek) and the Stormwind music started playing. I swear I almost died then, but couldn't yet, as I recognized the statues almost imediatly and felt the urge to pay hommage. Still didn't know by then (suspected ofcourse) that the Alliance Expedition had survived. I walked to each and was delighted to find that not only had they placed the statues there, a very nice touch to the city lorewise, but they had plates that could be read! So I read them! Happily! Even more so when I found out who had wrote them! Ah the good feelings...

After the Valley of Heroes the plan was to go to the Cathedral of Light (had read about it somewhere) and /pray. After all, Paladins were a dying breed by the start of WoW. I had a lot to /pray for (no, I don't RP... not in WoW at least... but maybe I should... wtv). I wasn't expecting the sheer volume of the city though, or the number of npc's. So I spent the next hours of my gaming time that day talking to everyone and exploring every single house. I didn't even get to the Cathedral that day. Eventually I got there the next day and to Stormwind Keep. And talked to everyone. Everywhere.

That was it, some of the best memories I have of WoW. Nostalgia is a killer. Later I would create my fondest memories yet with my girlfriend and future wife when I got her to play. And I smiled when she got to Stormwind for her first time and was almost as awestruck as I, even if she didn't know anything about lore.

Aaaaand Grimtide beat me to it through simplicity...

Now I probably return to the shadows and you'll never hear from me again! If so, cya guys, t'was a pleasure.

You have descrived most the feeling i had, the only exception was that i started picking up quests just at the beggining... Back then i thought the World was... Just Teldrassil, lol, when i hited level 10, and i got the warrior quest that allowed me to get defensive stance and force me to move to Darkshore, i was like WoW... Teldrassil is just a very tiny area of the entire game... The same happened at level 58 when i moved to outland lol, i was like, wow, there is even more, offcourse that i've already had seen Northrend in the map, so that feeling didn't repeated at lvl 68 .

That Warrior is still my main.

It's amazing how a game can give us such feelings Glad that I share those with others that also play!

Originally Posted by MadVed

That's IT! I had to do it... after years of lurking I just had to let it out on this one... here goes!

<snip>

Now I probably return to the shadows and you'll never hear from me again! If so, cya guys, t'was a pleasure.

*whooosh*

So glad you posted! So nice to see those that frequent MMO Champ but never post, finally do so, and with such positive and inspiring stories Don't be a stranger! Thank you for your post

My first char was a paladin human .. I grew so fondly of elwyn forest that I refused to change the heartstone from Lion's Pride inn to anything else till the beginning of WoTLK.

And I started in classic .. think about it :P.

I still remember looking for every possible shops for upgrades of my equip ( white stuff lol ).

My first grey helm at around lvl 18 in redridge.. I was freaking excited.

And my first pvp few days later always there, in lakeshire.

Few rogue twinks at 19 trying to kill guards. I think I managed to kill some.

It got me so freaking interested and excited I couldn't sleep that night .

Etc..

I have to admit, I remember getting a pair of grey shoulders in my mid 20's and was super excited. I also had that *can't sleep* syndrome when I started playing, there was just so much to do and see, I felt I never had enough time lol.

I was very negative tward WoW pre-release. I was a former everquest player and had decided to quit mmo's as they were too much of a time investment. I also figured that wow wouldnt do anything better then EQ did, so i wasnt all that interested.

however the public beta week right before release came and I was looking for something new to play, and i figured id play it a week and find nothing new.

I created an undead warlock. I had never played a caster before, main on EQ was a monk which wow didnt have, so i figured id pick something in a completely new direction.

It didnt take me long to be hooked. Waking up in my grave, quest markers and a quest system that actually made sense. good net code. The graphics were cool, but honestly it was all the refinement of gameplay that really sold me on it and made me get back into an mmo.